Yesterday Once More: The Carpenters Reader by Randy L. Schmidt

Author:Randy L. Schmidt [Schmidt, Randy L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2012-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

On Missed Hits

Several songs have come in that have been very big records—[songs] that I listened to and said could be a hit, but I really didn’t like. So what am I going to do with it? There’s one right now—”Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady.”

It’s been Top Ten for several weeks, by Helen Reddy. I like the hook and that’s all I like. Heard it a year ago, listened to it and listened to it, and I said good hook, good hook, but I really don’t care for the rest of it. And I still don’t. “I Don’t Know How to Love Her” [from Jesus Christ Superstar] was another.

John Bettis writes rather sad lyrics, based really on lost love or depression … “Goodbye to Love” was my idea and my title and I wrote the first sound. In England the first time I was there I couldn’t get to sleep one night and I heard it just one night. I heard “[I’ll] say goodbye to love, no one ever cared …” Those were my lyrics, just that much. Then I wrote the rest of the tune and I asked John to come up and I said I want it to be called “Goodbye to Love” and here’s what I’ve got on it.

So the tone of “Goodbye to Love” was actually set by me. And then he followed through on what I had started. The chorus of “Yesterday Once More,” lyrics and music, I wrote, and the first sentence, lyrically, I wrote: “When I was young I [listened] to the radio.”

Do you not subscribe to the theory that pop represents youth?

Yeah, you’re right. Elvis originally appealed to the teenagers, and now it’s the Bay City Rollers. But the Beatles—think about it. They should get back [together] again. The other night on NBC-TV, Simon and Garfunkel were back for one show. People went BANANAS! Instant standing ovation.

I’m really a Simon and Garfunkel fan. I looked at that, I looked at them standing up instantaneously, I looked at the applause that wouldn’t stop and I’m thinking what would happen if the Beatles got back together, just did one concert. Think about it.

But perhaps the Beatles are not hungry anymore? Presumably you didn’t have the driving force, the hunger for success that the Beatles did as four guys earning peanuts in Liverpool?

I always wanted to be in music and I always wanted to be successful, so I had a goal. As far as starving—never, I was spoiled. Not that I’m saying my family had money, but what money my dad made was immediately spent on Karen and me for drum sets, pianos.

But to a lot of them, the start was hard. To me, the start was not hard but—orderly. But we still did have to wait a long time for good equipment, unlike most of the big rock bands now. Every mic we used when we auditioned was borrowed.

The car, the amps, were borrowed, the electric piano was borrowed, the oil was borrowed.

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